Texas chef hit with possible $2,000 fine for feeding the homeless

A Texas chef who has fed San Antonio’s homeless population for the past 10 years from a non-profit mobile food truck was suddenly cited and fined by local police for feeding the homeless.

Despite the ticket being issued a week earlier, Joan Cheever,
founder of a San Antonio mobile food truck called the Chow Train,
was nevertheless out feeding the homeless on Tuesday. There has
been an outpouring of support for Cheever after news of the
ticket surfaced, which she still has to fight in court in June –
and which she said she would do under the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act.

Cheever told Texas Public Radio she was inspired by
the show of support.

“It warms my heart but it doesn’t surprise me because the
community is behind me and they are behind every other nonprofit
that does what I do and there are a lot of them,” she said.

A week ago, four bike-patrol police officers stopped in the park
where she was feeding homeless people. They asked about her
license and her permit. Cheever is a licensed food handler but
police found the permit had expired and was issued for a truck –
not the car that the food was transported into the park with.
Police said she was being cited for transporting and serving the
food from a vehicle other than a truck.

The ticket carries a potential fine of $2,000. As a result,
Cheever said she would fight the ticket under the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act, a federal and state law that protects
the free exercise of religion, which she says her charitable work
qualifies for. She is due in court on June 23.

Cheever’s philanthropy is well-established and her efforts were
featured on the nationally syndicated Rachel Ray cooking show in
November.

Cheever's fine is the latest in a series of efforts by local
governments to discourage people from feeding the homeless in
public space. In Florida, Fort Lauderdale police twice arrested a
90-year old pastor last fall for feeding homeless people. In the
past two years, 21 cities have restricted street feeding of
homeless people, citing public safety.

However, street feeders and their legal advocates say the
campaign is part of an effort to keep the homeless population out
of sight – and part of a national trend to criminalize poverty.

A new report by the Institute of Policy Studies found that many
local governments, strapped for cash after the 2008 financial
crisis, were bilking the poor through elaborate schemes of
“offender-financed criminal justice services.”

The report argues that while there has always been prejudice and
stigma about poverty in the US, the criminal justice system
expanded misdemeanor charges in the midst of the financial
crisis, which led to an increase in fees, fines and court charges
that can be levied.

“As state and local budgets were squeezed following the 2008
recession, local authorities all over the country levied more
fines and fees on those people least able to pay – and
aggressively pursued them,” said Karen Dolan, an IPS fellow
and lead author of the report, titled, ‘The Poor Get Prison: The Alarming Spread of
Criminalization of Poverty.’

These increases also aligned with the privatization of probation
services in operating jails and prisons. The report, for the
first time, brings together disparate news stories and studies
that illustrate the broad movement underway that involves
criminalizing poor people and trapping them in the criminal
justice system for errant behavior such as truancy, not paying
parking fines or sleeping on a park bench.

The report refers to a state-by-state investigation by National
Public Radio into the fines, which found that since 2010, 48
states have increased criminal and civil court fees as
governments passed many of the costs of running the criminal
justice system on to defendants.

Apart from targeting the poor with fines, and the resurgence of a
“debtors’ prisons,” the report shows increased arrests
against homeless people, as well as those feeding the homeless,
and suggests that governments are criminalizing life-sustaining
activities such as sleeping in public when no shelter is
available.